Me Since You by Laura Wiess

Title: Me Since You
Author: Laura Wiess

Release Date: 18th February 2014

My Rating: 5/5

Blurb:
Are there any answers when someone you love makes a tragic choice?

Before and After. That’s how Rowan Areno sees her life now. Before: she was a normal sixteen-year-old—a little too sheltered by her police officer father and her mother. After: everything she once believed has been destroyed in the wake of a shattering tragedy, and every day is there to be survived.

If she had known, on that Friday in March when she cut school, that a random stranger’s shocking crime would have traumatic consequences, she never would have left campus. If the crime video never went viral, maybe she could have saved her mother, grandmother — and herself — from the endless replay of heartache and grief.

Finding a soul mate in Eli, a witness to the crime who is haunted by losses of his own, Rowan begins to see there is no simple, straightforward path to healing wounded hearts. Can she learn to trust, hope, and believe in happiness again?

In A Nutshell:

Me Since You is a raw and honest portrayal of grief and depression. It is the story of a family’s struggle to hold it all together when their life has been ripped apart and the special people who stick around hoping to eventually see a smile or ray of sunshine shine through once again.

My Review:
When a book so perfectly reflects real life emotions, how can you fault it? Me Since You will take hold of your heart and squeeze it until you feel as though you can no longer breathe. Just like the characters, you will cry until you didn't think it was possible to cry anymore. And then you’ll cry some more.

Me Since You is one of the most emotionally draining books I have ever read yet it is so beautiful and real in how it portrays depression and grief and everything that comes with the territory. After a heartbreaking tragedy strikes Rowen’s small town, the events that follow directly change the course of her and her family’s life. There are snide comments and vicious opinions, a town reeling from the devastating effects of suicide, the spiralling depression that engulfs Rowen’s father, and the anger and resentment felt through not understanding mental health issues. There’s the wishing that everything can just go back to the way it was, the confusion, the hurt, the pain, and the hole that is left when someone is suddenly gone.

The novel carefully examines how families, immediate and extended, are effected and how everyone grieves differently. Friendships can crumble or grow stronger depending on how individuals react and understand the process when everything in life changes and there is no easy answer as to how or when to move on. There is also a strong element recognising the healing power of animals and the love and bond between humans and four-legged friends. While I do not have personal experience in the types of tragedy Rowen lives, I do know something about grief and while this book will demand that you have a box of tissues next to you, for at least half the book, it will leave you a better, more understanding person for reading it.

Me Since You is a raw and honest portrayal of grief and depression. It is the story of a family’s struggle to hold it all together when their life has been ripped apart and the special people who stick around hoping to eventually see a smile or ray of sunshine shine through once again.